“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Action can be experienced directly, however, but only when no effort is made to tamper with it. It must be plunged into. Once more, action is not a function of structure. Action is inseparable from structure. Structure is action. Identities are action, as I have explained. Your idea of action as it occurs within dreams comes closer to the real nature of action than does your idea of muscular force. For in dreams the ego makes little attempt to impede action. Though in dreams you see or feel your arm move, your legs run, still the arm and the legs of the physical body may not move.

You cannot touch the action. You cannot touch the action, now, of your own arm as you write. You see the results of the action. You can feel effects of the action, but you cannot directly perceive the action itself. Since identity is dependent upon action, then it should be seen that it is impossible for an identity to attain stability, since total stability would destroy it.

If you will remember the three creative dilemmas discussed in our past session, you will see that we have here the reason for our self-perpetuating universe, the reason for termination within it, and the inherent necessity for change. If one thought were held forever, no other thoughts would follow, no action would follow, and no identity. In your own intimate psychological experience, in the intimate psychological experience of every individual within your race, you will find recognition of the thought.

Thought cannot be seen or touched. Thought is action. A thought within your field must vanish, be terminated, disappear, before it can be replaced by another. The identical thought will not return. A very similar thought may return, but the two thoughts will not be identical, although you may perceive them as identical. This is an error of perception.

No two actions are ever identical. We must mention here also a little regarding pulsations and the appearance or semblance of continuity. Every action involves a pulsation; you will recall we spoke of the pulsation of atoms and molecules.

A note now concerning thought, as it is a form of action with which all men are familiar. Here you can see that your ego accepts thoughts as a part of its identity. Thought’s actions are accepted by the ego, yet the ego seems to stand apart from them; and because of ego’s nature it fears to plunge into the action of a thought. For it, the ego, has but recently pried itself from action, and so perceives action now as if action were a province of the ego, and not the other way around.